As communications technologies develop continuously, there is an increasingly demand for higher and higher data transmission speed. Compared with a parallel data transmission manner, serial data transmission is characterized by a higher data transmission speed. Therefore, a serial communication manner is widely used.
A drive circuit is a core module of a serial communications system, and is configured to convert an input high-speed digital logical level signal into a low-swing differential signal and output the low-swing differential signal, so as to transmit a high-speed signal to a remote receive end. Drive parameters of a drive circuit vary in different transmission protocol standards. For example, in one system, different transmission protocol standards are used for a drive circuit and a receiver circuit. In this application scenario, the drive circuit needs to be compatible with different transmission protocol standards.
An existing drive circuit can support only one transmission protocol standard. If a system needs to support multiple transmission protocol standards, multiple corresponding drive circuit interface chips need to be welded to a circuit board. This causes a complex system layout and high costs. In addition, multiple chips reduce system reliability.